Models of Public Policy

Policy making,
Models (Rational model)
Defining policy and policy making
• Decision-making, involves making a discrete choice from among two or more alternatives.
Theories of decision-making deal with the criteria and processes used in making such
choices.
• Policy is a set of ideas or a plan of what to do in particular situations that has been agreed
to officially by a group of people, a business organization, a government, or a political
party.
• A policy is "a relatively stable, purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of
actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern."
• Policymaking typically encompasses a flow and pattern of action that extends over time
and includes many decisions, some routine and some not so routine.
• Policies include guidelines, rules, and procedures established to support efforts to achieve
stated objectives. Policies are guides to decision making and address repetitive or recurring
situations
• Policymaking is closely related to decision-making but is not the same as the latter.
Generally, decisions are made by administrators within the existing framework of policy.
According to Anderson, “Policy decisions are made by public officials that authorize or give
direction and content to public policy actions”.
 Models of public policy: Theories of decision making
• Model is a simplified representation of some aspects of the real world. it may be
an actual physical representation- a model airplane, for example, or the tabletop
building that planners and architects use to show how things will look when
proposed projects are completed. or a model may be a diagram – a road map, for
example, or a flow chart that political scientists use to show how a bill becomes
law.
• The models that we use in studying policy are conceptual models, which try to;
• Simplify and clarify our thinking about politics and public policy
• Identify important aspects of policy problems.
• Help us to communicate with each other by focusing on essential features of political life
• Direct our efforts to understand public policy better by suggesting what is important and what
is unimportant.
• Suggest explanations for public policy and predict is consequences.
A. RATIONAL MODEL (Policy As Maximum Social Gain)
• The rational-choice theory, which is sometimes called social-choice, public-choice, or
formal theory, originated with economists and involves applying the principles of micro-
economic theory to the analysis and explanation of political behavior (or nonmarket
decision-making). it has now gained many adherents among political scientists.
• Rationalism attempts to describe a process of efficient decision making. It typically
includes the stages of clarifying and ranking goals, identifying an array of alternatives
for reaching the goals, predicting the consequences of each alternative, comparing the
anticipated consequences of the various alternatives and selecting the alternative that
maximizes the attainment of goals.
• It is an efficiency-maximization model which postulates calculation of policy efficiency
(hence rationality) on the basis of all social, economic and politica1 values achieved
and/or sacrificed by the adjudication of public policy. In framing a policy, all relevant
values have, therefore, to be explicitly considered and sacrifices of some values must be
more than compensated by the attainment of some other values. This looks like
calculating the 'costs and 'benefits' of division which the economists are used to in
assessing the cost-benefit analysis.
CONT. …
• Herbert Simon, the prominent proponent, talks of these kinds of activities
included in the policy-making process: intelligence activity, design activity, and
choice activity.
• To quote Simon from his book, the new science of management decision,
• The first phase of decision-making process- searching the environment for conditions
calling for decision –which is intelligence activity (borrowing the military meaning of
intelligence).
• The second phase- inventing, developing, and analyzing possible courses of action –which
can be called design activity.
• The third phase - selecting a particular course of action from those available- which can be
called choices activity".
• The Simonian model is clearly a process model indicating the discrete steps that
are taken in the course of policy formulation.
CONT. …
• Herbert’s rationalism is regarded as unrealistic due to the constraints
of information, time and fund as real limitations. (this model is
getting popularity at this age with the emergence of computer,
inspired by data and information based decision making)